


Tension Bleed

by Nebulad



Series: Witch Doctor [7]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F L U F F, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 19:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13371540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: After days upon days of being chased by guards, breaking up (in a manner of speaking), getting back together (sort of), and only narrowly escaping the palace library, Jhend and Julian retreat to the magic shop with the intent to briefly shut the world outside out. It goes very, very well.





	Tension Bleed

“It was weird when you looked like Asra,” Jhend whispered against his hair. Julian sighed out a laugh, fighting to keep his eyes open. They were holed up in the magic shop, after the excitement at the palace; after which Jhend quickly waved away his sorries and his winding monologues on misery. _I care,_ they’d stipulated, coaxing him to lay against their chest. _I just don’t want you to linger on it right now._

“It was very a very impressive trick,” he hummed. “Though I didn’t _feel_ like Asra.”

“What does Asra feel like?”

He snorted and they swatted at him, dragging their fingers lazily through his hair. “I meant I wasn’t several feet shorter and slighter by a quarter.”

“You looked it, and that’s what was important.” They pressed their cheek against his forehead and he wondered at how he was continuously capable of relaxing _further._ It was like he’d been on the brink of collapse from sheer joint stress, and everytime their skin touched his a little tension bled right into the floor.

He tilted his head up and kissed their jaw, in awe at the… god he even struggled to think of an appropriate word… the lack of tension, the _opposite_ of wary panic, that flooded his headspace. It almost felt like he could sleep; really and honestly sleep. He was familiar with the bed in the shop, knew where it lumped and could reach out instinctively to snuff a candle or grab a glass; it wasn’t even as strange as he’d thought it’d be to be on the other side of the bed.

Well. He wasn’t on a _side_ of the bed so much as he was on top of Jhend; entwined. Their magic-calloused hands stroked long, slow lines up and under his shirt and cooled the back of his neck. Their knees were pressed to either side of his torso, not quite tall enough to reach his hips.

“I’d trust no other to transmogrify me.”

They wound a curl around their finger thoughtfully. “You have a strange… magic hangup.”

“I have a perfectly healthy fear of unregulated, unlimited power whose only structure is at the whim of the user.” He trusted Jhend; Asra he at least knew would use any magic with good intentions. Anyone else, though?

“Well don’t think about it if it’s upsetting you.” They traced the shell of his ear with the tip of their finger, which they probably wouldn’t have done if they’d known it would only tense him up… further. A different tense, though, a sweeter one that earned them a stolen, lingering kiss. It made them laugh, at least, and cup his face to hold them together. When he pulled away, their brows were still touching. “Do you trust me Juli?” they murmured.

“Of course.” With anything. Everything. “It isn’t you, you’re a fantastic mage. I thought you had wings earlier, remember?” It was almost embarrassing how his first thought had been that certainly they could fly. Of course they would have wings, hidden beneath their shirt; he wasn’t certain he didn’t still believe it.

It was a testament to the luxury of his rest that his limbs didn’t instinctively protest when he was rolled onto his side, to give Jhend a superior angle. One kiss turned to twenty as they smothered his blushing face in kisses, laughing at how red he went under their ministrations. “Your confidence is an inspiration to me, sweetness.”

He was certain he’d had something clever to respond with— or flirtatious or heartfelt or any one of those things that he had such little experience with, that still boiled up into his throat when they bid— before they kissed him again. And then again. And again, and again, soft little pecks and full open mouthed kisses, down his throat and tugging his lips between their teeth, lavishing his shoulders in bites until it hardly mattered what he’d meant to say at all.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing blog is here](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com), [I'm making a text-based dating sim here](nebulous.itch.io/manor-hill), [and finally my commissions post is here](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com/post/162182264019/writing-commissions). Also, keep an eye out for another secret project I'm working on (which you can keep updated on on my blog).
> 
> Anyway, here this is. I haven't had a whole lot to say about Julian's route for a while, but tumblr user [evendear](https://evendear.tumblr.com/) prompted me for "wings" on New Years and I finally got around to it after finishing my commissions !!


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